Brake Issue

[Tony & Rose]

Roger:

Yes to ALL.

Replaced the tubing three times (I believe the first replacement from FD-USA was bad, since it bleed everywhere).

Yes, we use the second additional sleeve.

The real corker is, three times at the same location!!! NOT at the joint/fitting, but 0.5 to 1.5 inch back.....

 

PS -- Again sorry, but will miss the Page gathering. You know the story, harvest time, etc....

[airhound]

All, I am assembling my own kit to add brake fluid thru the MATCOs. I have the oiler and the hose.....do I need to do something, like add some kind of fitting on the end of the plastic hose to fit the MATCO bleeder valve?

[Roger Lee]

Nope, just push the plastic hose end over the caliper bleed valve. Bleeding brakes on the CT is a piece of cake. call me if you have any questions.

[Douglas Bohnert]

Hey Roger,

 

Not enjoying the value of time reviewing this forum as much as I want to. Being a furloughed pilot I spend most of my time either flying or doing repairs at the local FBO. Anyway, I have this very issue with a 2007 CTSW having bled the brakes 3 times now and still having to pump it like crazy. One day I almost rolled over some taxi lights trying to get it stopped with a student. My analysis of this thread suggest a initial fix is to remove the springs from the linings. A long term solution is to upgrade to the MATCO brakes (our 2009 CTLS has the MATCO and no problems).

 

Am I correct in my analysis of this thread?

 

What cost our the owners looking at upgrading to MATCO - I'm thinking 600 dollars in parts plus labor???

 

Thanks for all your time and support.

[Roger Lee]

Hi Doug,

 

You can get a little better performance with the Marc brakes by doing two things. One take out the stupid springs that hold the pads away from the disc. You do not need to take the calipers off to do this. It's only 2 screws. Same with the pads if you ever need to change them.The disc will move on the 4 pins a little better if you touch up the holes a tad with a Dremel and a sanding drum. Either of these may make the brakes have a little clicking noise, but they will function better. If you don't open the 4 holes a little that's okay, but toss the Marc master cyl. and put in a $125 Matco master cylinder. It puts out more volume and twice the psi pressure. The marc brakes would be better suited for an Ultralight. keep the tires pressure at least 30 psi. As the pressure either decreases too much the thin crummy wheel actually changes size slightly which binds the 4 pins and disc.

 

The best is toss the Marc brakes and buy a set of Matco's. The whole system gets changed except the brake lines. Depending on whether you have an LS or SW the brakes may run from $830 to $960 depending if you have large tires, LS or SW and you get tubes with the Matco's or supply your own. That doesn't include labor which should run 3.5 - 4.5 hours of time. If they are new at it the longer the time, an SW takes longer than an LS.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

I'm not allowed to publicly say what I want about the Marc's.

Okay just a little something nice. They are 4 generations behind in technology and cheap.

 

Marc replacement brake pads are $135, kind of makes you want to hit yourself with a hammer.

 

The Matco pads are $25-$35 depending on how you buy them.

 

 

 

p.s.

Hey I kind of like these little emotion guys.

[FredG]

I have a 2006 CTsw with Marc brakes. When my mechanic took out the spring that separates the pads, braking action changed from awful to acceptable. I'm not disputing the value of the Matco wheels and brakes. Just saying that the simple removal of the srping made a big improvement in my CT.

[Roger Lee]

Spring removal and adding the Matco master cylinder which is fairly cheap and easy to do makes a big difference, but the Marc brake pads still have high speed heat fade.

[FredG]

That's why I land real slow!

[Jim Meade]

That's why I land real slow!

Concur. When/if my brakes go bad, I'll certainly look to upgrade to Matco, but until then, I'm running the ones I have.

 

I stopped by the Matco tent at Oshkosh and asked them about the upgrades for the CTSW. They showed me the exact setup. It looks good. It will allow me to address my toe-in issue if I decide to. In fact, my more likely reason to upgrade is to correct toe-in than to get better brakes. I can add shims or even machine a specific shim to set my toe-in angle. I like that.

 

The salesman mentioned he had this guy in Arizona named Roger Lee who had put on 40 sets or so. Matco likes Roger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Admin2]

If you are going through tires because of an alignment issue with the Marc's the Matco's can help fix that.

[Jim Meade]

If you are going through tires because of an alignment issue with the Marc's the Matco's can help fix that.

 

Matco's cost $900. Tires and tubes cost about $75, if I remember right.

[FastEddieB]

I knew my wheels were marked "MARC", but I had to check the POH to see what brakes I had:

 

 

So, I do have the Marc Ingegno brakes, and since I have the finger brakes, I also have the Marc Ingegno master cylinders.

 

This is what my installation looks like:

 

 

Master cylinders here:

 

 

Good news is that in five years and about 280 hours, original pads and no real problems except:

 

1) A while back my right brake got just a tad spongier than the left. A single pump took care of it, and bleeding did not help. Eventually resolved itself.

 

2) I noticed a brake dragging a bit when pushing back into my hangar. Inspection showed the rotor pins were pretty badly corroded and binding:

 

 

Hit them with a wire brush and they cleaned up fine. Now part of my monthly maintenance is to soak a shoelace-sized bit of rag in brake parts cleaner and clean them all up. I then apply a very small amount of disc brake lubricant to them with a q-tip and make sure they're free to move. Also make sure the pins are snug (I use blue Loc-tite on them at annual).Takes about 15 minutes altogether and seems to help.

[Runtoeat]

The factory Italian brakes didn't cause me any problems but my CT had too much toe-in and camber and this affected directional stability and caused tire wear. I installed Matco axles in order to have hardware which allowed me to correct the alignment concerns by shimming. The accompanying Matco brakes, wheels and master cylinder were installed so that I had a compatible hardware system. I just replaced my first set of Matco brake pads ($35) which had 1,100 landings on them over the past 2 1/2 years.

[Jim Meade]

Oddly enough, my right tire was showing a lot of wear on the outside, so I assumed it was a toe-in problem. Going through the FD procedure, the tow-in was revealed to be ever so slightly inside of spec. So, just for giggles, I checked the other side, which showed normal wear. Say it ain't so! That side showed toe-in way out of spec. Everyone blamed the right side tire wear on my incompetence, weight, that I always landed into a right crosswind, that I flew from the right side and all sorts of other excuses. I'm not sure what caused it. It's better now, but there is no doubt it is not to spec. I wonder if any of the SW toe-in settings are to spec?

 

The procedures for changing toe-in on a stock SW are crude at best. I'm not going to bother.

 

If I ever had occasion to change brakes, I'd do it to Matco.

 

 

[Admin2]

You all have surely named some of the drawbacks with the Marc brake system. The pins rust in humid climates. Who doesn't live in a humid climate for the most part. Opening the pin holes a touch with a Dremel sanding disc actually helps the disc on the pins better. You only need a couple of thousands off. Add a tad of lube like Fast Eddie and your set. No toe in/out correction, heat fade, pumping of the brakes because some dummy put springs in the calipers to hold the pads away from the disc. No wonder you have to pump them to get the pads near the disc again. Wheels so thin they flex with different tire pressures which help binned up the pins. Pads are a $135 for the Marc's and $25-$35 for the Matco's. Marc's rust like crazy. The master cylinder that only puts out 60K psi and a smaller volume verses the Matco master cyl. rated at 118 psi and a lot more volume.

 

Hi Eddie,

 

Looking at your brake setup a set of Matco's would fit your plane. The Matco's for the CTLS should bolt directly to your gear legs.

[Runtoeat]

Jim, I suspect that camber may also cause wear due to the repeated scuffing of the side of the tread (inside or outside, depending on whether pos or neg camber) at each landing and just over time due to taxing over pavement. I set up my toe to be just slightly positive (in). I set up my camber to be just about zero with slight bias to positive. After about 1200 landings on the current set of tires, I see that I am getting slight wear to the insides and will have to rotate these in the next 100 hours. You are knowledgeable about things so I figure you know to roll the plane forward a few feet to allow the wheels to take a normal stance before measuring if the plane was rolled backwards into the hangar. You may also have hit on a cause for wear if you land on a runway that consistently has x-wind in from one direction and you set the plane down on one side predominantly? The rubber, especially on the factory tires, is pretty soft and wears fast.